So, here we are.
Just a few days from our financial deadline for launch.
At a crossroads in our lives.
The course of our lives for the next few years will be decided, or rather, we will know which way to go, in a matter of days. I know that sounds incredibly melodramatic, but when you have been leading up to something for a year and a half, getting so close to it, and having it slip away, just inches from your fingertips, it gets kind of emotionally dramatic.
We have to have $13,000 in our account by Saturday. Which means all checks would have needed to already be in, and today is the last day to donate online, to ensure that the donations reach our account by Saturday. This morning, we just passed the $10,000 mark, but that still leaves almost $3,000 to go.
For the past couple of weeks, I have been emotionally detaching myself from things to do with the Race. I no longer read blogs like I used to. I no longer participate as much in online conversations over Facebook or Google+ Chat with L Squad. Every time I think about the Race, I get this huge, overwhelming sadness in the bottom of my stomach. So, I've been, consciously or subconsciously, I'm not sure, detaching.
Which is not at all a good way to handle things.
I feel like, for the most part, I am pretty well adjusted, and I have a good support system with my family and friends to help me through whatever I go through. But this is one of those things, that even though Josh and I are experiencing it side by side, I feel like we are both on individual emotional journeys of faith, peace, and dealing with grief.
I know it is silly to call it grief. I honestly have never lost anyone close to me, but I know that day is coming. But, I really do feel like I am grieving over this seemingly lost dream of a year and a half.
One of the things I learned at Training Camp was that it is okay to grieve seasons of your life. It is the only way you can learn from them and move on. I spent too long dwelling on the season of my life that was working at the Humane Society, and feeling that it was unfair that it was taken away from me. I had to forgive the people that I felt had wronged me, and I mean really forgive them, and as Seth Barnes, one of our L Squad coaches told me, my job from there was to have it take up as little space in my mind as possible.
Stop obsessing over it. Stop wishing it had turned out differently. Stop imagining what could have been, or how I could twist things to try to do it again. And then move on with my life and my thoughts.
None of that has anything to do with detaching.
If I detach, I am only delaying the process. Dragging out my season of grief. Replaying my regrets over what happened in my head.
I'm not happy with the place I'm in, emotionally. I know that detaching is doing nothing for me, and it is one of those things that even though I know this, I still want to drink my cup of detached with a shot of grief. Still want to protect myself by backing up emotionally.
Even so, I am plagued by regrets already. Is my unbelief the reason why we are struggling? Did I really do everything I could? Am I giving up too early? Was it all a waste?
Earlier this week, my sister texted me, and told me that we were on her mind, and she asked me to read Psalm 130. I read it in Josh's parallel of the TNIV and the Message, and the Message's version really impacted me:
1-2 Help, God—the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help!
Listen hard! Open your ears!
Listen to my cries for mercy.
3-4 If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings,
who would stand a chance?
As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit,
and that's why you're worshiped.
5-6 I pray to God—my life a prayer—
and wait for what he'll say and do.
My life's on the line before God, my Lord,
waiting and watching till morning,
waiting and watching till morning.
7-8 O Israel, wait and watch for God—
with God's arrival comes love,
with God's arrival comes generous redemption.
No doubt about it—he'll redeem Israel,
buy back Israel from captivity to sin.
Some days, that's what it feels like, that the bottom has fallen out. That we are left standing and looking around, wondering how we got here, and what we did wrong. What I am realizing, though, is that all I can do, all I am expected to do, is wait and listen.
Waiting and watching till morning. Waiting and watching till morning.
Even though sometimes, in our melodrama of it, it can seem like the end of the world of expectations that we built for ourselves, I forget that it won't be the end. It will be the beautiful beginning of a new season.
I have been trying to reflect on the things that I will gain by not going on the Race, rather than on the loss of not going.
If we don't go, we are most likely going to move to Kansas City. For us, Kansas City holds family, time with my newborn nephew, which I thought I would have to give up.
The promise of new jobs, which could be more ministry based.
I will get my 3 cats back, AND we will all get to live in the same house again!
Fall. And Christmas season. The way that can only be experienced by being with your family, and living in the Midwest.
And so much more.
Many people have asked us, if you don't make the deadline, why not just try again for January?
We are tired. Tired of living in this halfway state of fundraising, working jobs that don't fulfill us, missing my cats deeply every day. We just know, deep down, that this is it. We go on the Race, or we move to Kansas City. Each have the promise of good things, and honestly, if we do end up making the deadline and going on the Race, I will be sad that moving to KC will have to wait until we get back.
But I don't want to have any regrets. I want to know that I did everything that I could, including having all the faith that I could. So, I know that I have been going back and forth emotionally, and preparing myself for the possibility of moving rather than the Race may seem to others as giving up.
But this is far from a defeat.
Instead of giving up, I am backing up to look at the forest, instead of standing with my nose pressed up against a single tree, and being blindsided when that tree is cut down.
And instead of lingering on the tree stump that was our dream of going on the Race, letting my tears fall on the rings and running into the cracks in the bark, I'm going to inhale the scent of the leaves around me. I'm going to listen to the birds singing, to the creek running nearby. And I'm going to take the first steps toward the rest of the forest, no matter how hard it may be.
But, there's always the possibility that the tree won't be cut down. That it stays.
I am ready for anything. To take joy in whatever happens. If that means going on the Race, great. If that means moving, great. I'm just glad to be doing this with my husband by my side, and knowing that whichever tree we end up at, Jesus is walking right along with us.
If you would like to help us reach our support goal of $13,000, please click the Support Us tab on the left, under our picture. We have about $3,000 to go. If you have already supported us, words can't express how grateful we are. We will keep everyone updated on which path we will be heading down next.
